To fill the shoes of a hero
by mathew.sandbox
Summary: After people all over the world start to randomly gain abilities from TV shows, movies, and pretty much any other media you can think of, things turn to total chaos, with many different sides in argument about whether or not to eradicate these 'metahumans', enslave them, or imprison them. And my brother finds himself at the center of it all. Reboot of A hero of coincidence.
1. Life isn't fair

Life isn't particularly fair to people.

Some people are plagued with misfortune while others live easy, and vice versa. It's pretty random and indiscriminate. Coincidences. Whatever tomorrow has in store for us. People often hope for some form of fate or destiny to be guiding us, to bring the future we've prayed for.

But in the end, nothing is set in stone. Things change. That's the way things are. It's up to us to make the best of those changes.

It all started nearly six years ago, when I was just ten years old. People started gaining abilities, seemingly at random. People with the power to fly, to run faster than any living thing had a right to. To be impossibly strong, or smart. Not just that, but these abilities were… recognizable. Some from classic comics, some from cartoons, some from anime. It seemed any abilities from media of any kind could be gained. Well… that's what people think, at least. There's no way to prove that for sure. Just theories from what few 'experts' on the subject exist.

Anyways, at first, it wasn't that big of a deal, mostly due to these people being such a small minority. A few laws were quickly pushed through to better regulate these abilities, making it illegal to even use them outside of private property.

But things began to change for the worse quickly as the 'metahuman' population grew. In our city alone, over ten thousand people were found to have gained abilities, all in under a year.

People were getting very scared, very quickly.

It was less than two weeks before my birthday that my own brother came stumbling out of his room, screaming about not being able to get it off.

And on his wrist was a strange, green and white device. One he was desperately trying to remove, while our parents looked on in disbelief.

I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, even as my parents began to yell and scream at him to take it off.

I really wish I had stopped them.

I really wish I had helped him.

But instead, I stood there frozen in terror at the sight before me.

Things would only get worse for my brother from there on out.

And I was far too scared to help him.


	2. Not my origin story

Jorden and I were pretty close growing up.

Jorden's my brother, if that isn't already obvious. He's five years older than me, and the wielder of his own omnitrix. Weird, right?

Well, lemme back up for those of you are confused.

My name is Noah Beeve. I live in a world which is constantly changing, mainly due to the number of people here gaining powers every day. Crazy, _right_?

I guess this whole thing started when I was about four years old, or at least, that's when the first known case of someone gaining abilities popped up. I'm sure there were some beforehand, but it hardly matters now.

What does matter is that over the years, people all over the world gained a myriad of different abilities from all sorts of media.

People who could fly, punch holes in mountains and telepathically make you piss yourself.

People from all walks of life, far and wide, getting powers that would make young children scream and cry in jealousy.

My brother being one of them.

My brother got the omnitrix when he was thirteen years old, and at the time I was eight.

To give you a little background for later, I was a pretty big fan of a TV show called ben 10. I loved it, but Jorden wasn't particularly interested. While Jorden and I were pretty close after his… incident, before it he had been in a bit of a phase where he'd wanted to nothing to do with me. Teenager stuff, you know.

Our parents were honestly… pretty hateful people. Although… not entirely without reason. My mother had worked in a hospital that had been burned down by some psychopath with pyrokinesis, and in her attempt to escape; her spine had nearly been crushed by a falling steel beam on that day. Unfortunately that meant she would never be able to walk again.

Once Jorden and I realized what it was that he now held on his wrist, we were both thrilled. Our parents… not so much.

My mother had a pretty strong hatred for people with powers. My father was a bit more apathetic, but still went along with everything his wife said, so he was of no help.

Once my parents realized the watch wasn't coming off, they were furious with Jorden. They '_warned_' him if he ever used it they'd throw him out of the house and disown him. For weeks afterward our parents wouldn't even look at him. I was too afraid of them getting angry at me to say anything…

Things were never really the same after that. They ignored him, and treated me like a saint. When Jorden started sneaking out regularly, they didn't even notice. But I did. And I wanted to know where he was going.

Out the back door, across the street, through the back alleys and to junkyard, apparently.

I found him there, fiddling with the watch, looking somewhat nervous.

I confronted him.

He thought I came so I could tattle on him, go figure. But we managed to talk things out. Jorden wanted to master the omnitrix, and become a super hero. When I asked him why, he answered with this. "Anyone with powers should help people. With great power, right?" He said all of that with a smile. Thinking back to it, that smile was probably only for my sake. Thanks to that, I decided what I would do.

I would help him become a super hero!


	3. Super, but no hero

As it turns out, becoming a super hero (in brother's case) would be a complex process.

For starters, if our parents caught Jorden using the omnitrix he would immediately disowned. Not a very promising idea.

So, instead, I'd help him practice in secret! We'd only use the smaller aliens so as not to be noticed by anyone passing by the junkyard.

But another issue we'd be facing would be him actually going out, and y'know, helping people.

"Mom and dad aren't going to notice me leaving. Besides, in the worst case scenario you'll cover for me, right?"

Not a foolproof plan, but it would have to do.

It took him a few minutes to work up the nerve to actually try the omnitrix, but when we did, it was… completely awesome!

Jorden held up his wrist, and began carefully cycling through the aliens he had, before picking one.

The dial popped up. He gently pushed it back down. The flash that occurred afterward left me blinking dots from my eyes.

Jorden stood much taller, and held up his hands. All _four_ of them.

Fourarms stared at his now four hands in confusion.

I hesitantly asked "…Was that not the one you were going for?"

He turned to me, his red face still looking unsure. "I couldn't really tell what it was. But this feels really… weird."

"like you're _you_, but not really you?" He flexed his newfound muscles. "Yeah… something like that."

"Ok, let's try something new then!" I pointed to a rusted fridge lying nearby. "Try to lift that!" Jorden blinked, then walked towards it, his much heavier footfalls shaking the ground slightly.

I nearly fall over as he gets closer, then steps past me, takes two arms, the three, and lifts the fridge right over his head with almost no effort; nearly flinging it from his hands in surprise at how easy is it was.

"I'm …strong?" "You're strong!" I confirm excitedly.

He lifts the Fridge even higher, now smiling confidently, and threw it across the junkyard, looking ready to take on the world.

He-no, _we_ were only just getting started.

That day, my brother and I experienced the impossible for the first time. We didn't see it on tv, we didn't see it on the internet, we saw it through our own two(four?) eyes. I'll never forget that moment. Even after what happened to Jorden, even after everything that happened to me, I know now that what I saw on that day was the beginning of my own destiny, as well as Jorden's. My fate was never to be a hero.

It would be to fill the _shoes_ of one.


	4. On his way

**Short chapter- don't worry, I'll be getting to the point soon; had to get back to school, so that slowed me down a lot. But don't expect me to be update this story too regularly.**

"Let's get this thing started!" I shouted excitedly, trying to hype up my brother. He nodded and pressed his fingers to the watch, and then the bright green flash occurred, and his body collapsed after, leaving him as a living puddle on the ground. Goop.

"Okay, try to melt that pile of scrap over there!" I called, pointing to a nearby pile of broken metal and electronics.

The anti-gravity projector above the puddle nodded, before it and the puddle moved swiftly around the pile, spinning until the heap was nothing more than a melted pile of slag.

I gasped, impressed beyond belief.

At the moment we were really just testing the waters, seeing what the aliens he had could do.

Unfortunately, school would be starting soon, so our plans of heroism would be delayed. Still, this wasn't able to curb my enthusiasm. At the time I had the idea in my head that I would somehow be able to be my brother's sidekick, that I could be a hero too. I even drew a "cute" little picture of what my outfit would look like, and yes, it does have a hexagon on the chest. I drew it when I was like, eight, okay!

But none the less, we pushed on training and trying out most of his aliens, trying not to attract too much attention to the junkyard. Our secret training was effective, despite the secrecy.

Speaking of secrecy, our parents started forcing Jorden to wear clothes with long sleeves to avoid people seeing the watch, out of fear of the shame it would cause them. Little did we know, that at that time, even if unintentionally, our parents had protected him by doing that.

The government had been looking for metahumans at the time, and had they found Jorden, thanks to the nature of the omnitrix, they would not have necessarily needed him alive. And if they found they couldn't remove the omnitrix… I have no doubt they would have disposed of him with extreme prejudice.

People thankfully never questioned him wearing long sleeves so much, so I guess we had luck on our side, too.

And then it happened.

Jorden stopped his first crime!

We had been walking home from a trip to the store to get some snacks, when we saw a nearby ATM being pried open by a group of three morons dressed in all black. We, being a pair of reckless kids saw this as an opportunity to be heroes.

Jorden ran into the nearest alley way, ducking behind a dumpster. Before a beep and a massive flash occurred.

Diamondhead had taken his place.

"You stay here!" "What? But I want to help-"My brother ignored me and sprinted at the hoodlums.

The ensuing fight was rather underwhelming; one of them called him a freak, tried to hit him with a crowbar, and when that didn't work, Jorden grinned evilly and socked one of them. He went down with a grunt, and the other surrendered quickly enough- Diamondhead pointed at me and said "N- er, I mean, you, random citizen, aid me by calling the police!" I grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

Jorden ran changed as soon as he heard the police cars approaching- he had already knocked them both out cold, so he just ducked into the alley and regained his human form.

The police questioned the both of us, but sent us on our way quickly enough. Thanks to the modern area of super humans, they hadn't found our story too surprising. They did ask for a rather detailed description of Diamondhead though.

Jorden was able signal to me not to mention the omnitrix symbol on his chest, which I felt was a wise decision- if they knew about it, they'd start looking around for people who wear weird watches. Which for Jorden, would be a bad thing.

We continued our way home with no other interruptions, And Jorden received a severe tongue lashing from our mother the instant we stepped into the door; but after what had happened it seemed like nothing could bring him down.

We were both sent to bed with smiles on our faces.


	5. First mistake

The next few weeks passed without much fuss, Jorden continued his training in the junkyard, and I continued to cover for him. Our parents weren't idiots after all, though. They started inquiring about his whereabouts more and more often; so he decided to slow down for a while.

I was a little upset about this; it meant we couldn't go out to the junkyard and break stuff. I had become rather attached to the place's mountains of scrap and quiet atmosphere.

Jorden told me to start focusing on my schoolwork; he'd think that it would help suspicions if both of us maintained higher grades for a while.

By this point I had come to admire my brother a lot- so despite my passionate hatred of school, I did as he asked. My usual C's were driven up to A's and B's, if only for a while.

Still we pushed through the year, and by thanksgiving break Jorden felt comfortable returning to the junkyard for some practice.

How little did we know…

He still only had ten aliens unlocked, but mastering them all would take a while anyways.

"I honestly don't think I need a million of them, Noah. Let's just keep working on the ones I have."

That's what he told me when I brought up the Idea of unlocking more. I had chuckled to myself when he said that, knowing full and well that there _are_ a million of them. I decided not to mention this.

Day by day, he continued testing the various aliens he had access to- trying to figure out all of their individual quirks. Finally, he reached the alien of the hour.

Diamondhead.

With a bam and a flash, he was the crystalline being once again.

"Okay, I've only used this guy like, twice before." He turned to me, his face literally glittering in the afternoon sun.

"Noah, what do you know about him?"

-**Jorden**-

My brother looked up at me, grinning impishly. "That's Diamondhead! He's made of super strong crystal, and can shoot crystals, and can turn his arms into swords, and do a bunch of other cool things, like grow crystals out of the ground and…"

I tuned Noah out once he started rambling; As helpful as he could be, his explanations are usually lacking, along with his storytelling abilities.

I turned to the nearest pile of garbage, and attempted to 'shoot' it. I found my ability to do so exceptionally poor. 'I guess that's out for now.' I thought, before moving on.

I attempted to shift my arm into a sword, only to find the shape much lumpier and rougher than I'd imagined. Guess it takes a little practice…

"…-And he can only get hurt by sound waves!" My brother finished, finally taking a breath. "He's one of the coolest ones! Although Cannonbolt is still cooler…"

"That's awesome, bro."

Noah's grin faded. "You weren't listening, were you?" "No." I deadpanned. He sighed. "Well, you should try stabbing some stuff for practice."

"Good Idea." I stepped forward, towards a dented refrigerator and sharpened my arms as much as I could- which wasn't much, if the dull thuds my blows against the fridge indicated. I grimaced. 'This is going to take a while.'

Minutes into my 'training', I heard my cry out in surprise as one of the mountains of scrap behind us shift, as a small avalanche of rusted metal pour toward my brother. The sound of metal scraping against metal filled our ears.

Noah stands frozen in fear, a dear in headlights _seconds_ away from being struck by a truck.

Instantly I panic, and grab for the back of my brother's shirt, yanking him away from the impact zone and into safety.

I push him behind me, and kept him there as the pile settled into a mess of objects.

I turned to him, no longer afraid for our safety. "What the hell Noah! Why didn't you move?! You could have died!"

"I…I…" Noah looks ready to cry, and I instantly start to feel like shit. I probably should have thought of this before, but my brother is a normal kid. He doesn't have superpowers, and _I_ need to remember that.

I pulled him close as the omnitrix began to time out. "Sorry, I didn't mean that… sorry, sorry…"

We stayed like that for a moment before pulling away.

**_Unknown_ **

A man in his late 30s could be found sprinting away from piles of scrap metal, before dragging himself over a fence and as far away as he could- he'd nearly been caught by that kid, and then it would have been game over for him. His bedraggled appearance would indicate homelessness, with a grimy face and worn out clothes that hadn't been washed in weeks. Even as he stumbled through the sidewalks, past disgusted pedestrians, and in spite of his situation, he grinned. Now where's the nearest police station, he wondered? He wasn't a bounty hunter, but an opportunity like this was _not_ to be wasted.


End file.
